Jonah Engel Bromwich, “The Raisin Situation” (The New York Times, 2019, 3,844 words)

The Raisin Situation by Jonah Engel Bromwich introduced me to a whole different side of the food industry I never gave thought to. It’s a war zone out in California’s raisin industry and if I were in Harry Overly’s shoes I would’ve hired a bodyguard so a raisin hit man didn’t come after me. The Raisin Industry is ridiculously divided and hosts a bunch of issues from drought, bad weather, work strikes, and more. The Raisin mafia definitely exists and I would instantly watch a documentary on this oddity of a story because of the establishments of the characters and it’s profile on Mr. Overly. I think the black and white photo gallery really supports the tone of the story along with the mini paragraph subsection titles that dive into a new slice of the conflict. The article did a great job adding information in parentheses to emphasize that the shady stuff happening in the story is actually legal like independent farmers coming together to set new industry prices. The quotations from “The Showdown at the Expo” really set the scene well and I felt the tension in the room through Bromwich’s writing.